


The Void

by junichiblue



Category: Bleach
Genre: Awkwardness, Comedy, Danger, Enemies to Friends to Lovers, GrimmIchi - Freeform, Hand Jobs, Hugging, Kissing, M/M, Mystery, Violence, bones - Freeform, fighing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-15
Updated: 2020-11-15
Packaged: 2021-03-09 18:49:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27580955
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/junichiblue/pseuds/junichiblue
Summary: Ichigo's second battle against the Sexta Espada known as Grimmjow, goes horribly wrong, and then... goes even more horribly wrong. In all the right ways. Grimmichi.
Relationships: Grimmjow Jaegerjaques/Kurosaki Ichigo
Comments: 36
Kudos: 267





	The Void

**(or that time they trapped themselves like idiots in a bubble dimension during their second fight)**

Ichigo had barely survived their first encounter. So, naturally, he'd been eager as hell to take on the arrancar a second time.

Some would call it poor life choices. Or a chip on his shoulder and something to prove.  
  
Ichigo would call it surmounting an obstacle. Well, maybe surmounting was an exaggeration. It was more like, being run _over_ by said obstacle if said obstacle were an arrancar with the killing power of a fat angry truck.

Fuck, though. He'd come into this so confident of himself. All pretty masked and powerful. But it was admittedly a shiny new power, and like a cheap, poorly researched junker, it failed him at the worst possible moment. And that decisive moment had given Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez the upper hand. Cheap and easy pickings, just the way the rogue Espada liked it.

His mask shattering at the most inopportune time, and his power breaking apart on him, Ichigo had frozen completely. The arrancar's returning grin was full of final goodbyes.  
  
And then, they were falling. Out of the sky and out of control.  
  
Grimmjow grinned like something that would scare a scary clown into shitting itself as they rocketed toward earth. On the way down and in Ichigo's face, Grimmjow had said something semi-complimentary about Ichigo getting his cuts in. Not really a confidence booster. Not really meant to be.

Then they struck the city streets like a bomb. Well, Ichigo did, at least.  
  
Out of control and every bone and muscle in his body hurting the whole goddamn way, he was a rogue bowling ball on a pristine alley, crashing into manicured city pavement, a wild and out-of-control thing, tumbling over himself and smashing everything in his path into a trench with finger-like flares of concrete until finally, the world stopped.  
  
Ichigo's body laid out in a smoking crater of dirt.  
  
He'd face planted for good measure. Spitting out dirt and chips of concrete, Ichigo panted for air, choking and coughing and only pulling more burning dust and debris into his lungs than anything. Jaw clenching as he struggled, pain ripping through him. But he wasn't done yet. Refused to be. He focused on getting air, shaking arms barely able to push himself up, but his sword still gripped firmly in his fist. Like a lifeline. Because it was. And because he would never let go of that.

He was hardly up at all before Grimmjow popped into existence just feet away.  
  
He didn't attack. Predictably unpredictable, and waiting in an unstable sort of brotherhood of battle for Ichigo to make a move. To _try_ and take Grimmjow on again in his condition.  
  
Ichigo could feel him watching his struggle. Enjoying it. Smug. And without mercy.

Ichigo tried to pull his mask on again. Raking curled fingers down in front his face with forced concentration. Like a miracle that had Grimmjow's eyes widening, the damn thing formed. And then, like it was giving him the finger, his mask shattered. In vaporized pieces and finally.

Ichigo's eyes grew wide with stunned horror, while Grimmjow leaned back and grinned in triumph. But he didn't spare Ichigo another moment to recover.

It was over.

As a last hurrah, Grimmjow gave him one more spinning kick to the guts, scooping him up under his black booted foot and sending his body hurdling down the road. One more time, for old time's sake.

When the dust cleared, Grimmjow was in front of him again, sword waving in the air as Grimmjow waxed poetic about the downward spiral of Ichigo's situation, wondering aloud about his mask.

“Hah! Looks like you can't pull on that mask again once it breaks. No matter. Fact is, I dunno why, but you can't bring out that mask again...”

He raised his arm, spun his sword into a down-strike position, then disappeared. Ichigo stared at his wrist in stunned horror. He'd lost his breath to searing pain as razor sharp, chipped metal broke through his wrist-bone, splitting clean through the bone and marrow and tearing down into the cement. Pinning him.

“...anymore! Right?!”

Grimmjow's face was nearly split into two on a murderous, satisfied sideways sneer.

“Don't worry. This'll be a point blank cero,” he purred with a voice full of condescending pleasure. Ichigo's guts dropped out and tightened as Grimmjow's eyes lit up in manic excitement. “I'll destroy that head of yours, _and_ it's stupid mask!”  
  
The red glow of cero lit his palm, then flooded Ichigo's entire vision.

Everything took on a red glow. And Ichigo was done. He was done. If he didn't move, he was done. Palm skewered by the Hollow's sword, Ichigo sucked back hard on the pain and braced against his wounded hand, grabbing Zangetsu out of the dead grip of his useless hand.

The hum of the cero reached a crescendo, and Ichigo lifted his black sword and chanted his battle cry like a hoarse curse.  
  
He watched Grimmjow tense as he caught the familiar two words.

“Getsuga Tenshou.”

The red glow in Grimmjow's palm flared out. It took Ichigo's vision with it. It's heat burnt his skin. Then the world between them darkened, the light of the sun swallowed up in blackest red as he shut his eyes. The color of congealed blood.

Something exploded.  
  
The world maybe.  
  
Then nothing.

**  
X X X**

  
Grimmjow dragged himself out of unconsciousness through blind stubborn will, swallowing down a ragged groan on instinct that could have easily given his location away to his enemies, screwing his eyes shut again against the relentless pounding behind them. But that discomfort was only a half-forgotten scream next to the searing burn of ripped flesh that speared right through his middle.  
  
He barely cracked a blurry eyelid, cracked a tooth in the process for good measure though, because fuck, he hurt, and curled forward, only to roll straight onto a reopened stump of arm in careful, silent agony.  
  
Grimmjow shed a tear for that.

He fell back again as he felt something deep inside shift out of place dangerously.  
  
And then opened his eyes. And blinked.  
  
Was he in the clouds? No wind was rushing past him. He wasn't falling. He could feel the earth beneath him. Oh shit, was he blind?! He nearly panicked then. Screwing his eyes up again and blinking them rapidly. After a moment, when it didn't go away, it finally registered. It wasn't nothing. And he wasn't blind. He was shrouded in a strange white light. Like a sterile fog. The space immediately around him fairly clear.

Without moving more than his head this time, he looked gingerly around himself.

He found 360 degrees of nothing.

He scanned high. Then low. There was dirt and rubble against his palms. Beneath him. A few feet around him. Then just a soft white nothingness that he couldn't quite find focus on.  
  
Grimmjow's eyes widened in sudden alarm as the reality of his predicament struck him into an open mouthed stupor.

Fuck. He'd died. And this was it. This was Hell's waiting room. Or Hell itself. Trapped by himself in his own mind for all eternity, with nothing but a piece of the very dirt he'd died on to remind him how he'd died in the first place.

In the end.

Tch. Grimmjow didn't care to be around others, but this was a bit much.  
  
Scratch that. A snarl rushed up his throat like ragged claws as he remembered. That snot-nose Shinigami, Ichigo Kurosaki must have beat him.  
  
He fisted a wad of dirt, crushing it tight like Ichigo's beatless heart inside his palm. If that was true... then fuck, he deserved to suffer in Hell for that. Dying by that puny wimp's attack.  
  
Grimmjow leaned forward to rise, only to double over. He crumpled with a growl on his lips that was part pain, and total resentment. This couldn't be Hell. And he certainly didn't feel dead.

Close enough to it, though. That was a big wound and a lot of blood.  
  
Gritting his teeth through the pain in his half shelled out guts, he held his sword hand up and formed a cero, something small. Minuscule. Damaged as he was, he didn't have much energy to spare.  
  
It hardly build up a real glow before he let it go into the nothing. And confirmed that it wasn't nothing. It moved, swirled around the cero as its weak light passed through. Like a mist.  
  
And it cleared a path that oddly stayed cleared. And with it, Grimmjow stiffened in shock. The red dissipated as the small cero simply snuffed itself out, to weak to go on. But Grimmjow didn't really notice that.

Not thirty feet away, a dark shape lay still and unaware on a small pile of city rubble of its own. Limp and loose like a thing tossed aside.  
  
A growl built up in his throat, and he damn near staggered to his feet, hand clutched to his middle protectively, where he hurt most.

Fucking shingami had done this to him. To them.

Grimmjow reached for his sword and grasped empty air.

“Shit.” He spun around, unbalanced as a newborn and nearly falling on his ass, scanning frantically, desperately, for Pantera in the rubble that'd been his landing spot. And just how did that work anyway? He shook his head. It didn't matter. He needed to find his sword, and then find a way out of this... place.

Right after he took care of one more thing.

The shinigami was _dead_.

**  
X X X**

  
The shinigami _was_ dead.

With nowhere to put his rage, Grimmjow felt mildly disappointed when he realized he couldn't feel Kurosaki's reatsu. Even from a few feet away.  
  
But he could sure as hell smell him. The acrid scent of burnt flesh only really hit him when he was nearly on top of the kid. He was laid out on his back, head lolled back, stretching out the exposed column of his neck. Like Grimmjow, the upper part of his uniform had been disintegrated. He was ghostly pale where he wasn't burned or bleeding.

Blood, thick and wet, was painted across the bridge of his nose. Broken probably. His eyes were shut and motionless, arms spread out wide across the small hill of concrete and rubble and earth.

The dirt sprayed out around him, in finer and finer particles until the thin scattered edges ended against the white nothingness.

“Heh. You're probably better off,” he told him without sympathy. Kurosaki's arms and hands and some of his face took the worst of it. Probably from Grimmjow's cero. Or the backlash of his own Getsuga Tensou.

Would serve him right.  
  
The flesh was melted into wet, red blisters on his palms, wrinkled lines like a lava flow, winding down his arms in angry rivulets.

Yeah, he was better off. They both were. He'd likely be screaming if he were alive. And Grimmjow would have to listen to it.  
  
His pain returning with a vengeance after leaning too far froward and standing too long to stare at his prey, Grimmjow grunted his frustration.

He didn't _decide_ to find a spot and lay down for a minute. It was going to happen either way. Hopefully he'd wake up again, then he'd try to find his way out of wherever the hell he was. A wave of exhaustion that had been creeping up on him, suddenly surged, threatening to overcoming him. He turned away from the corpse of his enemy and stumbled back towards his own pile of earth. Like some kind of burial mound.  
  
“Che.” Fitting. He'd look for Pantera again while he was there. Scour the debris. He must have missed it the first time.

**  
X X X**

  
Ichigo came awake in a rush of unpleasantness, coughing hard on the familiar metallic tang of blood that had pooled in the back of his throat. Then he cringed. Biting it back. Normally he would jolt himself back to consciousness, but this time, he didn't dare flinch again. His body was hot. Skin like he'd touched the sun. So many raw nerves, and so much information from so many places, he couldn't figure out what hurt and what didn't.  
  
He just knew it was bad.

He spat out some of the blood. Swallowed the rest. Tried not to gag. His vision, just a crescent slit, faded in and out for a long time, his mind not quite attached to his body. Eventually though, he found himself squinting into dull white light.  
  
He seemed to be in a cloud. His eyes flew open. Shit, was he falling? He suddenly remembered his last real moments in an alarming and ugly series of flashes. He'd been fighting Grimmjow, the arrancar, the fucking Espada, and then... the cero... and then... he'd fired back.  
  
Ichigo's brain lurched. Had he blown himself sky high?

He hauled himself up on shaky core strength alone, hands curled against himself for protection.  
  
He looked left, then right, then up. He saw nothing but... There wasn't anything.

“Oh my god,” he whispered. He hadn't blown himself up. The city was gone. They'd blown it _all_ up. His voice grew in strength but as it did, it began to crack. “We blew it up. Oh God... It's all destroyed. There's nothing left. It's...” Nearly sobbing, he hunched forward, burnt hands cradled loosely against his temples. “I did this...”  
  
“Shaddup!”  
  
A hand cracked Ichigo soundly across the back of the head, sending him tumbling forward like a bag of hammers, crashing onto his hands and knees, and skidding out of the edge of his rubble pile. And bitch if that didn't hurt like hell. Ichigo squawked and cursed the four corners of the earth at the insane burn, using the pain as momentum, and spinning angrily onto one bent knee to face his attacker in a shaky defensive pose.  
  
Eyes going simultaneously dumb and wide as he did.  
  
“Quit whining about it!” his attacker shouted at him.  
  
Ichigo knew the angry snarling face in front of him all too well, the cold Hollow killer. And for a second, he couldn't believe it. But instantly, he felt a flare of righteous hot anger, for being smacked in the head, yeah, and for having been accused of, of alllll the terrible things, having actual feelings about shit.

“Grimmjow,” he spat in spite of himself. Giving name to the devil he knew before the indignity of the situation could take over. He forced himself to his feet, hunching forward and teetering like a threatening leper.  
  
“You shut up!” he blustered. “I wasn't whining! I was stating a fact!” he yelled, even as he swayed from a surge of vertigo.

Grimmjow's arms were folded across his bare chest, the drying smear of blood from the wounds beneath them making him slightly less imposing than usual. He didn't look too bad off, really.

“Bullshit! You've been moaning like a bitch and whining about it your sleep for the past...” Grimmjow grabbed his temples and scrunched up his eyes before he threw his arms out in exasperated anger. Yelling at the not sky and at the nothing, before turning on Ichigo. “I don't even know how many damn hours it's been!”

Grimmjow was acting weird, he noticed vaguely.  
  
“Yeah? Well, how would I even know about it if I was out cold, you jerk?!” he spat petulantly.  
  
Sarcastic comebacks first. Figuring shit out, second. He had priorities.  
  
“Tch.” All the crazed emotion curdled on Grimmjow's face, then bled away. In its place, his finger's twitched. But ultimately, his gaze turned away, interest and thoughts seeming to narrow in and turn to the mist. “Fine.” Ichigo'd been mumbling though. That was for sure. It'd sounded like whining to him.

Ichigo though, was staring at Grimmjow with a new look of astonishment, and a growing horror.  
  
“Your – Your arm...”  
  
“Yeah. It's great. The one fucking gift you managed to give me while screwing everything up.”

Ichigo looked appropriately insulted and upset, and that actually improved Grimmjow's day a bit.

“You're healing too,” he remarked, before Ichigo could sound off again, his voice low and unemotional.  
  
Ichigo looked at his arms and hands. Blanched a little. How bad had it been if this was healing? He vaguely remembered how much more it had burned when he was still half conscious. God. He didn't want to know.  
  
“How long...” he started - and where, and why, and what - all fading out under a growing rush of questions. Too many to fit through all at once. He got no answers. Just an unsettling set of cold blue eyes watching him. Defying him. Answering to no one, naturally. “You're injured too,” he offered, finally. And naked from the waist up. They both were.  
  
“No shit,” Grimmjow snapped. “I'd say you'd taken a blow to the head, but who could tell?”

Ichigo should have knocked him one for that, if he could, but he only looked at his hands again, inspecting them carefully for changes. He heard Grimmjow make a short noise of disdain for him, but his mind was like... like the mist. He realized it eventually. That Grimmjow had insulted him. Twice. Maybe he _had_ taken a blow to the head.

“Do you know... what happened?”  
  
The cold expression that sat at the edge of his eyes as he closed them twitched again at the edge of his jawline.

“Sure.”

Ichigo waited, a scowl growing more pronounced as something inside him started to tick too.

“Well?” he snapped.

“Your dipshit powers fucked everything up.”

For a moment, Ichigo nearly swallowed it.

“There's no way. I can't... I can't do that much damage. Wait... Why are you still here?”

“Question of the day, jackass.”

“Stop insulting me and tell me what you know!”

Grimmjow lifted an eyebrow along with his chin, threatening.

“Or what?”

Ichigo growled his frustration and spun away.

“Never mind. I'm leaving.”

“Good luck with that,” Grimmjow snorted. Ichigo looked at him cockeyed over his shoulder as he began to limp away. That was not a happy sound. It was oddly foreboding. Ichigo didn't like it one bit.

But in a moment Grimmjow and all his _charms_ had vanished, just a bad memory in the mist behind him.

Grimmjow watched the mist wrap around Ichigo as he left. Then it took his shadow too. He stood there scowling at nothing in particular, just counting the seconds as best he could.

Two minutes later, Ichigo returned, from the opposite direction.

_His face._

Grimmjow nearly laughed, even as Ichigo's confused as fuck, wide-eyed look of growing horror, turned to a sharp and accusing scowl.

“How the hell did you get ahead of me? Do you still have sonido?”

Grimmjow's eyelids lowered in bland annoyance.

“Take a close look around you, you witless sack of shit.”

Obediently, Ichigo did, actually.  
  
“Notice anything yet?” Grimmjow drawled, like Ichigo needed all the extra-special education in the world.

“The dirt,” was all he said.

“Exactly. Didn't exactly drag it with me, now did I?”

“It is the same... in every direction?” Ichigo asked, scanning the fake horizon despite knowing he wouldn't see anything different.

“Course it is,” Grimmjow's loud mouth answered sharply. “Otherwise I wouldn't still be fucking stuck here with you.”  
  
Ichigo was unmoved by Grimmjow's temper tantrum, too busy trying to figure out where they were. What they could do.

“So this is... it's not Karakura... it's not Serieti or Hueco Mundo... It's some other... dimension?”

“You're asking me?”

“Yes, Grimmjow,” Ichigo turned and said seriously, and a little tiredly. “I'm asking you.”

Some of the will to fight seemed to drain from Grimmjow a little bit too. This was a problem. A serious one.

“Yes. I think when our powers collided point blank, we ripped a hole in space, and created a bubble dimension.”

“Holy shit. Wait, what do you mean... bubble dimension?”

“Heh.” Grimmjow rolled his eyes. “Kid, you're so dense. How'd you ever survive this long without a sitter, huh?”

Something ticked in the corner of Ichigo's temple. But he took one calming breath and held himself back

Grimmjow's smug grin faded a little as he realized Ichigo wasn't going to take the bait this time. They stared each other down for a few tense seconds before Grimmjow finally started to explain.  
  
“Our swords are gone. I think this place is pure reishi. Made up from all of our own energy. The good thing is, our injuries are healing as we absorb the reishi back.”

Grimmjow watched Ichigo blink the information into his brain, mouth open and slack as he did, until a tiny light bulb finally flickered to life.

“What's the bad thing?”

“It took you two minutes to get back here.”

“So?”

“A few hours ago, it took me six minutes.”

“It's collapsing.” Grimmjow didn't respond. If anything he just looked angry and annoyed at having to explain things. “But that could be a good thing. If it's collapsing, we could be freed.”  
  
“Yeah but freed into what, Kurosaki? Who knows if the bubble is sitting in the middle of Karakura, or if it's just black nothing out there. We could be vaporized.”

“Shit.”

“The other option of course,” he continued to Ichigo's paling face, “is that when this thing collapses, we'll be crushed.”

Grimmjow tilted his head as Ichigo sat down, legs wobbly and folding beneath him, shrouded in a loose pool of black fabric from what was left of his shihakusho. He definitely looked a little pale.

With little else to do, Grimmjow sat too, one leg bent at the knee, resting his new arm on it comfortably. Ichigo had really given him a gift. Damn. Now he felt like he owed him somehow. Nah. When would he be able to pay him back anyway now? They were probably both going to die in here, or out there. Whichever. Dead was dead.

Either way, it was all pissing him off. He stewed on it, glaring into the nothing like he could light it on fire until Ichigo finally disrupted his dark internal conversation.

Ichigo was looking up into the sky or whatever it was.

“What if we go up?”

“Tried it,” Grimmjow said flatly. “Can't seem to grab the reishi.”

Because Grimmjow's word apparently wasn't good enough for him, Ichigo stood and lifted his foot to confirm it was the same for them both. It came down again with no resistance. Ichigo did to, Grimmjow watching him like prey as he deflated and sat back down on his ass. He was so lean and long bodied, there wasn't even an ounce of fat as he hunched forward. Yet he could draw up immense power. It just go'd to show, you could never tell what was inside from pretty packaging alone.

After a long moment of thinking and nothing, Ichigo shot to his feet again and started pacing, one hand ruffling his hairline. Grimmjow took his cue and rolled to his feet as well. Folded his arms and watched Ichigo slowly melt down.

“Shit. So, no swords, no flying, no sonido or shunpo. What _can_ we do?”

“Do you know any Shinigami magic?”

“Uh. No,” Ichigo stopped pacing and scowled, sheepishly. That was always a touchy point with him.

“Hn.” He gestured one hand from inside folded arms. “Can you bring out that stupid mask?”

Ichigo raked his hand down his face, and got exactly nothing in return.

“No,” he sighed needlessly, but wanting to put a voice to his disappointment.

“Hn. Well, I dunno about you, but I still have my cero.”

Without prompt Grimmjow uncrossed bare arms and flared one to life in his palm. Then aimed it directly at Ichigo's face.

Full power. Then he grinned as the familiar whine had Ichigo's eyes flying open, wide as saucers.

“Grimmjow?!”

“I told ya I'd blow that stupid mask off your stupid face, and I did. Guess I get to take just your face this time.”

He let the red glow build.

“Grimmjow! No!”

Then let it go.

Ichigo hit the ground like bird shit and the cero - or it's half baked cousin? - flew over him tightly, beginning to flare out and turning the distant mist into a soft red glow before disappearing.

“Che. You weren't supposed to duck,” Grimmjow frowned. He looked at his hand in annoyance. He must have paid a price for regaining a limb, and wasn't up to full power yet. Or maybe he just couldn't draw any more.

Looking righteously murderous, Ichigo hauled himself onto his feet, all gangly and huffy and making fighty fists and clenchy teeth.

Grimmjow forgot his hand immediately. His frown turned to an excited sneer. Fuck his cero. They were definitely going to _go_. And hand to hand was fine with Grimmjow. Anything was fine. This was a much less boring activity while they waited to be crushed or vaporized.

Grimmjow grinned, raised his fists, and did a one two boxer's punch in the air, stepping lightly side to side.

“Let's go...” he cheered, pausing in confusion when Ichigo dropped back to his knees as if he were bowing to a God. To him. There was no way he was doing that to Grimmjow. “Hey, what the hell are you do-?”

***PAFF***

Grimmjow took his own cero to the back of the head, and went down with an outraged screech in a fizzling heap. Immediately, he sprang back up, feeling for hair in the back, which was smoking, but still miraculously in tact. If that cero had been any stronger though...

“You son of a bitch!”

Ichigo didn't answer. He had already fallen onto his bare back and was clutching his stomach, laughing so hard, tears had formed.

So, Grimmjow kicked him in his stupid guts.

***PUNT***

So hard, he scooped him up. And watched Ichigo disappear into the mist, spinning the whole way.

“That's what you get for mess-”

***CRASH***

Grimmjow went down like a backwards sack of shit, the human bowling ball that was Ichigo taking him out hard at the knees. They tumbled across the white ethereal plane and skidded to a messy stop in an uncontrolled flurry of arms and legs, fists punching out, hands grappling, and generally yowling like a bag of angry cats.

Minutes later, they both lay stretched out, sweating and panting. Scraped and bruised up all over again, watching the sky do nothing.

“I had another thought,” Grimmjow said eventually.

“What? Two in one day?”

“You're pathetic human sarcasm can't hurt me. You noticed our swords are gone, yeah?”

“Hadn't noticed,” Ichigo eye rolled. They'd covered this already.

“Big surprise.”

“Shut up. Your pathetic Hollow sarcasm is... pathetic.”

“Original. I think we could be inside our swords.”

“The- ” Ichigo sat up, braced on two mostly healed hands. “Both of them? Like they're fused? Oh, God. God, I hope not.”

“Calm your shit,” Grimmjow snapped mildly, staying flat on his back. “It's just a theory.”

“It's a terrible fucking theory!” Ichigo yelled point blank. Something shuddered around them, but it was too faint to notice. “You're sword being fused with my sword is wrong on every level!”

Grimmjow's head lounged towards Ichigo, with wide, scandalized eyes and trauma in his too high pitched voice. “Don't make it sound indecent!” The touch of an angry blush reddening his cheeks.

“Gross! I didn't!” Ichigo's cheeks flared back in kind. He hadn't!

“You did, you pervert! And your pathetic excuse for a sword should feel honoured to be in decent company for once!”

“I didn't! You're the pervert! You know why I _really_ wanted to fight you again? Because you're such a dick!”

“Quit talking about dicks!”

“I never did in the first place! You're the one who keeps bringing dicks up! You...” Ichigo's mouth snapped shut like a trap.

The noise Grimmjow made as he sucked his teeth long and slow, said it all.

“Okay, that one was on me,” Ichigo grumbled, giving up and falling onto his back again.

“Fucking teenagers,” Grimmjow grumbled mostly to himself.

It was awhile before they spoke again.

**X X X**

“I was dead? Are you _sure_?” Ichigo squinted critically at him.

“Fairly fucking sure,” Grimmjow glared back in the withering way that only he could. “You had no reatsu.”

“Huh. Well, maybe you couldn't pick it out because this place it basically both of our reatsus.”

Grimmjow looked at him slowly with a controlled degree of hatred, and made a small startled noise in the back of his throat as Kurosaki's idea processed. Sonofabitch. That was possible. But no. His eyes narrowed in memory.

Ichigo had been fucking smoldering.

 _Crispy_.

“No. You were dead.”

Ichigo frowned.

“Well, if you're right...” He continued as if such things were no sweat off his back. “Then maybe you were dead too.”

“I wasn't dead. I woke up.” He knew exactly where Ichigo was going with this, beating him to the punch. “Which means _you_ lost the fight.”

“You just said I was dead until I woke up, moron. You were probably dead too until you woke up. No. It's for sure. You were dead first, so you woke up first. Which means, y _ou_ lost the fight.”

“Please. I was kicking your ass, you overconfident shit headed shinigami teenager!”

“Okay. Stop!” Ichigo made a desperate crossing motion with his hands. “How about we agree,” he began as if he absolutely didn't want to, “that no one lost the fight. And...” He let his head fall to the side, fixing Grimmjow with a serious look. “We'll have a rematch.”

“Sounds like a great idea to me.” Grimmjow curled forward. “Let's go.”

“Obviously not here, dumb ass,” Ichigo cut him off loudly, pushing himself up, just in case, and sitting against his hands again. “We don't even have swords, and you have a cero. How's that in any way fair?”

Grimmjow looked him over, down the long lean lines of his body. His fair skin looked mostly smooth and healed now. Hair had a bit of a dull shine to it too, despite the shroud of sunless nothingness they were in.

“I only have _half_ a cero,” he said plainly, eyes falling to Ichigo's. “It's pretty fair.”

Ichigo tipped his head in thought, then frowned right back.

“Why _is_ that?”

Grimmjow immediately sneered in distaste.

“Hell should I know, you twit?”

“Shut up you di- ...uh, douche.”

“Tch. Good save.”

“Seriously. Why don't we have our full powers? Isn't that something we should know?”

The questioning look on Ichigo's face made Ichigo looked so oddly innocent at that moment, looking to Grimmjow for answers, that he couldn't take it anymore. Grimmjow smacked two hands hard against his face and dragged his cheeks away from his eye sockets.

“Cuz like I already explained, this place IS our powers. And they're leaching back into us.”

“But for how long?”

God help him.

“Until they run out! Which based on how long my last cero took to return, is pretty fucking soon! How many times are we gonna have this conversation?!”

“At least I'm trying to help us!”

“And look at all the good it's doing!”

The bickered until they ran out of steam again.

Something shuddered in the background again, still too faint to notice.

**X X X**

“It's been hours.”

“Tch. A couple 'a days, more like.”

It had been minutes. Almost twenty by relative time if they'd noticed, but still...

And the place hadn't shrunk any further.

Grimmjow didn't even dare light a mini cero at this point. It would literally shoot up his ass if he did. Their world had been growing smaller and smaller, then... just... given up. Or something. Stabilized? That was not a good option either because that could mean they were here for all eternity. Vaporization was starting to sound like a blessing.

Or, it would have, hours ago. Or days ago? Grimmjow was starting to hate Ichigo a little bit less now. Well, maybe not less, just... differently. Which was not something he expected. In fact, if he had to put a finger on it, he'd say he didn't feel quite like himself anymore. Which was alarming as hell.

“I don't hate you as much as I used to and it's pissing me off,” he declared out of the blue.

Ichigo stopped mid sentence, interrupted from whatever subject Grimmjow hadn't been paying attention to, but also taken wildly off guard.

“Really? You don't want to kill me anymore?”

Grimmjow just shrugged against the ground. Neither a yes nor a no.

“Still feel like I'd enjoy kicking your ass across town. Killing you too. Just not as... angry about it.”

Ichigo sent him a wide, wary eye.

“That's touching?”

“Gotta kill you. Not a win if one of us isn't dead.”

“Stop. You're making be blush,” Ichigo deadpanned. He squinted in thought for a moment, then did his best to psychoanalyze his frenemy as a thought formed. “'Cuz you're a Hollow and I'm a Shinigami. Whichever side loses will be massacred. It's been that way for over a thousand years...”

Grimmjow's head shot up, a heavy weight off of folded arms, blue eyes bright with territorial shock.

“Oy. That's something I would have said.”

“It is? Shit.”

Ichigo squinted, barely lifting his head. He wouldn't say shit like that to anyone. Sure he would. Wait. No. That wasn't him. And that less-angry thing beside him now, that definitely wasn't Grimmjow.

Strange things were happening.

“I think we're changing.”

The silence was long and dreadful.

“If I'm changing into you, then just kill me.”

Ichigo scowled. They definitely weren't changing.

“You're still a hateful ass hole. So, maybe we're not changing that much. Wait.” Ichigo's brows did a deep and determined dive over dark, complex eyes. “If I change into you, then maybe I can use Cero. And then I'd basically be using zanjutsu.” Ichigo grinned like a perverse maniac, steepling his fingers at the sky in brotherly, i-told-you-so delight. “Rukia would die!”

The response was clipped. Irritated. Grimmjow.

“What?”

“Shinigami magic.” Ichigo offered easily, settling back and still riding his high. Grimmjow glanced at him, vaguely interested but not looking like it.

“Who's Rukia?”

“Shinigami. Short. Dark hair.” Ichigo paused, voice lowered and much less friendly. “You met.”

“Oh, right,” Grimmjow responded evenly, looking bored and vaguely disgusted **.** “She was easy to kill. Hardly had to put any effort into it.”

Ichigo looked over. Grimmjow was twisting his cero hand around in a kind of fond remembrance.

Focused.

Nope.

“Change of subject,” Ichigo said foully. He glared at the fog sky until the need to solve the mystery overtook the dark memory and the sharp surge of dislike for the arrancar who'd injured Rukia.

But it was Grimmjow who tested the theory out loud on his tongue first.

“So, you think... we're absorbing each other's reatsu...”

And Grimmjow who grimaced.

Ichigo scowled back competitively.

“Gross.” As if he was going to let Grimmjow be the only one to act insulted. “I don't want any of you inside me.”

In the silence... there was silence... and then, Grimmjow muttering an angry, disbelieving whisper...

“You _have_ to know...”

“Yes, I heard it that time,” Ichigo hissed back, mildly distressed, head on his own folded arms, eyes fixed upwards and brows pulled into a deep knot. “Shut up.”

**X X X**

Feeling less energetic, Ichigo wondered if the air was getting thin. Maybe the reishi was running out. There were still no immediate sign of the place collapsing, or of an opening to whatever lay beyond. It was both frustrating and terrifying.

He was too young to die in a bubble. He had his whole life ahead of him. And Grimmjow had his whole... whatever ahead of him. And this was really just a really dumb way to die.

“I've never even kissed a person on the lips,” Ichigo lamented in a burst of true teenage angst.

Grimmjow hadn't said a word, nor an insult in ages. Perhaps because Ichigo hadn't said anything until now, either.

It didn't quite compute, when the whiteness above him was suddenly blocked out. Not by anything from the outside, just by a six foot angry looking arrancar that was hanging above him, straddling him, splayed hands planted firmly beside Ichigo's shoulders.

Ichigo's eyes bulged.

“What are you - ?!” It was a sentence he didn't get to finish. He froze as Grimmjow loomed. Then dropped in low. And for a horrifying moment, pressed dry Hollow lips against his with all the quick, rough, and aloof efficiency of a rubber stamp.

And then Grimmjow was gone again. He didn't linger.

“That's payback for creating this place and fixing my arm. I've re-payed my debt to you.”

Ichigo hauled himself forward, mouth agape at the Espada on the ground a few feet away. Grimmjow had just done and said all that with a straight face. Ichigo had no words.

“That doesn't count,” he groused.

“Counts,” came the annoyed reply.

“It wasn't a real kiss.”

“It was lips on lips. Who cares about anything else?”

“I do. A kiss is something... You kiss someone to show them affection. That you love them.”

“Well, what can I say, huh? Doesn't matter that I tried to help you out, you're still looking down on me.”

“The hell..?” Ichigo sat up, exhausted and angry as hell all of a sudden. Trust Grimmjow to make a meaningless kiss into some messed up competition over who thinks less of who. “I don't think I'm better than you, goddammit. I mean, I'm striving to get strong enough to beat you, yes. But it's not about just you. I need to be strong enough to beat everyone.”

“Keh.” The acerbic drawl was the icing on the cake. “And here I thought you had an ego problem.”

“It's not about my damn ego. It's about results. About saving the things I care about.”

“Exactly, shinigami. It's about You saving the things You care about...”

He wasn't completely wrong there. Ichigo scowled. Grimmjow making sense was one thing. But Ichigo actually agreeing with him... They were in trouble.

“Yeah well... at least I don't have a gigantic inferiority complex.”

Grimmjow lurched off the ground.

“Who're you calling inferior, you little shit?”

“You just made my point for me.”

“You wanna go?”

“The point is... I don't think I'm better than you. And I don't think you're weak. You're strong. Scary strong. Okay? I was scared out of my mind when we met.”

Grimmjow seemed to cool a bit, placated enough to lie back down.

“That's the only sign of intelligence I've seen in you. I wiped the floor with your ass. And here you keep running back for more.”

“Keh. Keep telling yourself that.” Ichigo shook his head. He just complimented him and Grimmjow only had insults to give him back. Well fuck him then.

“Heh. It was obvious to me from the start that you got a death wish.”

“No, asshole. I have a purpose. Unlike you.”

Grimmjow went silent. After a long moment Ichigo started to wonder if that might have been a low blow. Grimmjow was a Hollow. No heart. No purpose. Perhaps through no fault of his own. He was what he was and...

“Oy.”

Ichigo's attention snapped back onto his cell mate.

“Does that look more solid to you?” Grimmjow asked, sharp blue eyes studying their little world as far as he could see into it.

Ichigo squinted. Something about the mist did seem different. But he couldn't say what it was.

“What do you see?” he asked, looking for a clue from the Espada, who had turned his head slowly to eye Ichigo. Who should've known better.

“Use your good eye,” Grimmjow grunted, expressionless mostly, save for narrowed eyes.

“What? What the hell are you talking about,” Ichigo muttered angrily. “I don't have a...”

***PUNCH***

Ichigo went down with a choked off cry. Writhing in jaw-clenched silence before he shot up again, clasping his newly black eye.

“You son of a bitch!” And lunged at Grimmjow with only one thought in his head.

Grimmjow met him with both hands, prepared and jaw bone open wide as he started to laugh. Ichigo hit him hard, crash-tackling into him hard enough to roll them across the ground, deeper into the mist. And eventually back to where they started.

Except that they _didn't_ end up where they'd started this time.

Ichigo was winding up for another punch, aiming for Grimmjow's pointy-assed chin, when the Espada simply ducked out from beneath him.

“Hey! Get back here! I'm not done with you!” Ichigo shouted, a bruise already blooming across his ribs, and blood leaking down onto his lip from his nose. He swiped it away, leaving a streak of red down the back of one bare arm.

“Shut up.”

Confused and anger derailing with a snuff, Ichigo did, watching as Grimmjow examined the mist. Or what looked more like a wall of it. Almost semi-solid. Ichigo crawled on all fours to where Grimmjow was squatting.

This was new.

“Is it an edge? A way out?”

Grimmjow looked at him sideways, before standing and straightening his back and shoulders. Manning up. It was clear he was a little nervous. But he shrugged.

“Only one way to find out.”

Without giving Ichigo any time to process the situation or offer sage advice, Grimmjow touched a finger to the semi solid surface. The mist swirled around its tip. When nothing happened, he pushed his whole hand through. Then pulled it back.

At least, some of it.

What came back out was mostly bones.

Grimmjow screamed.

 _Ichigo_ screamed.

Crab crawling backwards and throwing one arm out in front of his face for protection.

Grimmjow shot back from the edge, feet planted wide, pinprick eyes wrenched open, holding the skeletal remains of his hand up and out and far from his body, as if he could get away from it.

And incidentally for Ichigo to see more clearly.

Ichigo covered his mouth with two hands and tried not to vomit.

“Fuck! Fuuuuck!!” Grimmjow screeched, panting and breaking out in a cold sweat. Losing a limb was one thing. Skeletal hands were another.

Swallowing his gourd, Ichigo tried to remember how to deal with a medical emergency, though skeletal hands had never come up. Mostly, he just tried to be helpful.

“Calm down!” he yelled in a panic, jumping to his feet and holding his arms out, but absolutely not getting anywhere near the skeletal hand that Grimmjow was staring at in horror. “You should... sit down or something!”

The eyes that briefly shot to him were fairly murderous, and widely convinced that Ichigo's _help_ was as useless in battle as _he_ was in battle.

“Go be helpful somewhere else, you stupid piece of shit!” Grimmjow snapped as he panted, something like a whine breaking through his clenched teeth.

**X X X**

Ichigo did nothing in the end. Grimmjow stormed off as far as he could get and crouched by himself in silence, like a wounded animal, the occasional grunt of pain floating across what was left of their tiny space.

At least things had calmed down.

The noises faded after awhile. Ichigo closed his eyes. Drifting. Gone.

Until something nudged him awake.

“Oy.”

Ichigo blinked awake and looked up, putting the scene together and regretting it instantly.

Grimmjow's toe was in his ear. The Espada himself, looming far above him with both hands in his pockets. Ichigo slapped him off frantically like a bug.

“Gotta show you something,” Grimmjow mumbled. Then produced the offending limb. Ichigo shut his eyes reflexively.

“Ew. No!” he muttered, looking away for good measure.

“It's not...” he growled, sighing irritably. “Just look,” he demanded, holding it out so Ichigo couldn't miss it. “Like I get off on showing you my wounds...” he mumbled.

Ichigo squinted through his fingers, before he finally dropped his hand and looked for real.

“It's healing,” he said, in awe that it was so far along already. “How long...”

“You were out for an hour or so. Another half hour and it'll be totally healed.”

“That's good,” Ichigo offered. He didn't really know what to make of it, how it fit into the big picture. If it was helpful at all. Grimmjow seemed to have an idea about things, though.

“Have you noticed, that when we're not fighting, we heal faster?”

He hadn't but...

“Now that you mention it, maybe? Okay. So, what? The reishi flows better when we get along?”

“Seems to.”

“Do you think that's a key to getting out?”

“Dunno.” His answers were short, but he was talking again. His bone hand seemed to be regenerating, fresh tendons and muscle covering most of it. Still without skin though.

Ichigo didn't have to try not to stare.

“So, we have to... what... be nice?”

Grimmjow looked like he'd eaten a rancid, week old turd. They were warriors. Grimmjow wasn't down for pre-school antics. Well, beyond what they'd already done to each other in this empty hell hole.

Ichigo soured.

“Maybe. I guess.”

The place shuddered. They both felt it.

“What was _that_?” Ichigo asked nervelessly for them both.

“It's collapsing...” Grimmjow breathed, eyes going wild as he braced for... something. Anything? He didn't want to be bones. But nothing happened for a moment.

“I don't think it is,” Ichigo said skeptically, grabbing Grimmjow's arm to catch his attention, and wide blue eyes.

Something familiar had flashed at the edge of Ichigo's senses, a thin ribbon of reatsu that wasn't theirs leaking into the air.

Ichigo looked up, recognition widening his eyes.

“Urahara?”

They heard it before they saw it. It was small and white, nearly two dimensional. Something fluttering down from the mist. Not falling in a straight line as it would with gravity. And not like it was being carried on a breeze.

It took a sharp right, bounced around a few times, then shuttled hard to the left. No. It was more like a worm being jerked on a fishing line.

They both tangled to grab for it. Having two good limbs, Ichigo reached it first.

“What's that?” Grimmjow barked.

“Nothing!”

Grimmjow grabbed for it with his good hand. They tussled. Ichigo shoved Grimmjow away with a palm in his face, the note far out of reach in his other hand. Grimmjow swatted his hand off his face, but then, against his character, gave up and watched him unfold the paper with folded arms. Let Ichigo have his stupid note. He'd find out what it said in a minute, anyway.

“Who's Urahara?”

Ichigo squinted at the small square note in his hands.

“Nobody. Just a guy.”

“A guy? What, you gotta boyfriend??”

Ichigo promptly choked on his own spit in scandalized outrage, paper crumpling as his hands clenched.

“He's a Shinigami!”

Grimmjow looked at him, lip curled but dead serious.

“So, you have a Shinigami boyfriend.”

“No!” Ichigo wailed. “He's my teacher!”

Grimmjow's whole face screwed up.

“Really, Kurosaki. That's too much information...”

“No! Not like that!” Ichigo growled from behind a beet red face. “He's a defected Shinigami. And he helped me regain my powers after I lost them. He trained me. That's it!”

“You lost your powers? And had to train to get them back?”

“Yes.” Wait. Ichigo's scowl grew. That's what Grimmjow was getting from this? He wasn't sure which was worse, being called out for being... _that way._.. or being called out for not being able to hold onto his own spiritual powers. “Are you gonna let me read this stupid note or not?”

“Nobody's stopping you,” Grimmjow said evenly.

“Hnngggh,” replied Ichigo, turning away long enough to get Grimmjow out of his periphery.

“The note says... “ _ **Trying to get you out. Energy imbalance. Keeps fluctuating. You might implode if you try to leave now. Need to test theory. Please follow instructions in ten... seconds...” ?**_

For all his eccentricities, Ichigo mostly trusted Urahara. He had lived under his _father's_ roof after all. And despite all the bullshit his father exuded, there was a good person underneath. Someone to be counted on. Urahara had always struck him as that kind of person. Mostly.

“What instructions,” Grimmjow grumbled when Ichigo didn't continue.

_...in five, four..._

Ichigo held the note out at Grimmjow's eye level, and Grimmjow moved in to snatch it away.

_..three, two..._

“Give it he-”

_...one._

***PAFF***

Ichigo's fist shot out from behind the square of paper, nailing Grimmjow square between the eyes, knuckles cracking against the bridge of his nose.

“Auugh!' he squawked, staggering back and sounding nasally. “What the fugh?!” He held his nose and started forward, nothing but instant retaliation on his agenda.

Free hand out, to show he wasn't going to throw a punch again, Ichigo thrust the note back out at eye level with the steaming Espada, who amazingly stopped just long enough to read it through himself.

“I'm sorry I punched you in the face. It was for science...” Ichigo offered by way of explanation.

Eyes watery, Grimmjow adjusted the bridge of his nose as Ichigo brought the thin paper barrier down from between them. Grimmjow's angry face was full of future promises, but all he did was threaten, understanding the note.

“I'd do the same for you,” he growled.

“Good to know,” Ichigo nodded.

“S'many times as it took. You wouldn't even have to ask.”

“GOT IT.”

**X X X**

A second note landed.

A resigned slouch to his shoulders, Ichigo picked it up, mumbling words Grimmjow couldn't hear as his eyes started darting side to side, going narrower and narrower. Something ticking sharply in his temple. Until Ichigo threw the wadded up ball of paper on the ground and crossed his arms.

“Nope!”

Grimmjow's lip curled as he eyed the balled up note, then Ichigo.

“What'd it say, dammit?”

Ichigo shouted at the sky. Ignoring him.

“Not gonna happen!”

Ignored, Grimmjow was already reaching for the note. While Ichigo continued to rant in the background, he stood and un-crumpled it, bringing it right up to his slitted eyes to see the tiny writing. Then he scowled and dropped it too.

“Great. We're gonna die here,” he declared, completely in tune with Ichigo.

“ _ **You have to sync up. Physically. And emotionally. Compliments might be a good place to start. And a hug couldn't hurt. -Urahara”**_

He looked back down at the note on the ground, then caught sight of his own mostly regenerated hand. With a resigned Tch, he grumbled. “Fuck. Let's just... do it.”

“What? No!” Ichigo turned, wailing.

“Did you see my hand earlier, dick-wad? You want that to happen to both of us?”

Ichigo came to a stop, looking like he'd eaten an entire lemon for all his face was scrunching up. He folded his arms again and turned his head to the side in petulant refusal.

“Fucking third grader. Well? Do you wanna live or not?” Grimmjow growled, jaw teeth gritting together.

“I'm thinking!” Ichigo snapped... then promptly sagged. “No. Maybe. Fine. Just... Ugh... Just be quick.”

There was no way they were going to be able to compliment each other. So it was option two. Or die.

Grimmjow made a sound with his teeth, but didn't move. Ichigo stood awkwardly, not looking anywhere near his rival, fingers busying themselves in the short scruff of his hair while he rested his other hand on the naked edge of his hip.

Almost by accident, and certainly not on purpose, they eyed each other, both waiting for some insubstantial cue as to who would even take the first step. Finally, they both did, which made it easier somehow to take the second one. They were in this together. No one was throwing themselves out there on their own.

A few steps was all it took, and they were inches from each other. And Grimmjow was _tall_. And nearly twice the bulky muscle than Ichigo was. His scarred chest, still scarred which was one of the many weird things about this place, and his see-through Hollow hole were so close that Ichigo could feel his body heat. And pick up a scent that was, not nearly as unpleasant as its owner's personality would suggest.

“So, how you wanna do this?” Grimmjow asked, voice sounding far smaller than it had ever had, which was super weird given how close they were now.

“It's a hug,” Ichigo croaked. “So just...”

They both started to move their arms, both going high. Both needing to be on top to feel like the man in the situation.

“Oy. I'm taller than you,” Grimmjow grunted. “Put your arms down.”

“I like having them on top when I hug people,” he lied. He'd really never given it a thought before now.

“I'm taller, so my arms go over yours. It's natural.”

“Nothing about this is natural,” Ichigo muttered, irritably.

Under Grimmjow's fight-me glare, and with a huge sigh, Ichigo rolled his eyes and thrust his arms out, more like a robot than a loving human. Grimmjow made a throaty noise of complaint and did the same.

Then they touched. Arms to ribs. And arms to shoulders. Then hands to backs. Then stomach to stomach.. and hips...

Every part of their bodies went stiff. Somebody, Grimmjow perhaps, took in a sharp inhale of air.

Other than feeling trapped up against a psychopathic, murderous arrancar, it didn't... feel... terrible. Ichigo let his arms relax a little further into it. Hands shifting smoothly along the muscle of Grimmjow's back before his fingertips hit the _edge_ of something, and then...

“Oh, my god.” He couldn't move.

“Get your fingers... out of my hole,” Grimmjow said with quiet, deadly seriousness. Ichigo glanced waaay up and froze under eyes that were nearly pure white, nothing but animal pinpoints casting down on him from the corners of his eyes. He looked quickly away.

“Sorry.” He shifted his hands up, safely above the strange absence of stomach. “Better?”

“SO. Much.” Was all Grimmjow could say through gritted teeth.

Despite it all, they leaned into it a little bit more, making it as much of a real hug as they could. Ichigo could feel Grimmjow's breath ghosting over his ear. Could feel the way his throat rumbled when he spoke, even from the small distance they kept between them. Bodies almost at full contact, but faces still craned apart.

Still not quite a real hug.

“Do you feel like this is working?” Ichigo asked with _far_ less hope than he'd _ever_ had in _any_ battle he'd _ever_ been in. Grimmjow just sort of grunted. While Ichigo hung on for dear life, mostly afraid to move, lest he be mini-cero'd in the gut. Grimmjow was unpredictable.

Grimmjow swallowed, unwilling to shift or make a move of any kind either. Precarious as their situation was. He would never admit he was frozen up.

He knew Ichigo had just said something, but Grimmjow didn't quite hear it. His acute senses were overloaded, picking up all sorts of things. And it was... alarming.

Like, that Ichigo's heart was beating awfully fast. Grimmjow could feel it just below his own chest. Thumping away behind his human-shinigami skin. He was warm too. Really warm. Not as clammy as his pale skin made him look. And up close, the skin of his neck smelled... like.. like.. Grimmjow had already wrapped his mouth around it before he could consider the consequences. Pulling away and inhaling the lingering, musky scent of wet saliva on warm skin. Eyes blowing wide, and body and thoughts rushing away on him.

What. The. Fuck.

He inhaled again on instinct. On need. Exhaled, only needing more.

Ichigo was so focused on the feel of Grimmjow's skin and muscle under his palms, the strangeness of not hurting each other, that he only jerked to awareness from the sharp sound of a deep inhale, and then.. the startling blast of heat that came with a wet mouth and tongue that worked and lingered against the column of his neck before Grimmjow finally pulled away in a rush... only to catch Ichigo's lips in that same wet heat.

Then they popped apart.

Ichigo crane his head back... and looked up. Into eyes and a mouth that were wide and never more lost or amazed.

Grimmjow looked unstable. Unhinged. Vulnerable. Ichigo noted in a daze.

But he wasn't _not_ kissing him. He wasn't _running_. Ichigo kind of had no place else to be too all of a sudden. Things that were hot and rushy were heading south through his body, spreading out like the glow of a warm forest fire, and also focused like a fucking spot welder.

A word or maybe just a noise, caught in Ichigo's throat, but never made it out. Grimmjow's eyes, darkest blue, almost black really, were hooded, like he wasn't really there anymore. Giving in to the moment. He nosed them together again, then planted himself against Ichigo's mouth, kissing him hard and deep and without apology.

Ichigo's eyes rolled closed and he pushed back against a full and feral kiss that sent his hormones into a teenage frenzy.

One of Grimmjow's hands left Ichigo's back, and dropped away. All the way. Ichigo's eyes flew open as a hand that usually punched and stabbed and held a sword and formed ceros, was suddenly feeling its way over the left cheek of his ass, cupping him perfectly, like it belonged there, lifting him and forcing him closer.

Without warning, Ichigo recoiled, pulled back, and kneed Grimmjow right between the legs as hard as he could. And then realized what he did as the Espada folded in front of him. Amazingly staying on his feet.

That was only because Grimmjow _couldn't_ fall. He couldn't move. Or breathe. Or do anything remotely self motivated.

Locked up with pain, Grimmjow was just bulging eyeballs and hunched wheezing.

“Sorry,” Ichigo offered contritely. “Reflex.”

Well what? Kissing had been one thing. An unexpected and insane thing that Ichigo was going to spend the next ten years of his life processing. But when Grimmjow's hand had landed like an iron claw on Ichigo's ass, and... squeezed... Well. He'd reacted. Naturally. And a little aggressively. But who wouldn't? Except... who else would Grimmjow have done that too? And who else would Ichigo have... maybe.. mayybee minded that kind of contact from... after such close... comradery? Was that the word? No. That definitely wasn't the word... After such _forced cohabitation..._ sounded much closer to the real circumstances.

Either way, Grimmjow Jeagerjaquez was all up in his grill, with no immediate murderous intent. And though Ichigo could never have imagined himself in this position with anyone, human, alien, or violently Hollow... his instincts were turning over, like a tsunami hitting landfall, sweeping everything he'd ever thought about himself away in one messy and up-heaving act of nature.

Grimmjow recovered quickly. Balls of hierro, apparently. Ichigo was thankful for that. Maybe Grimmjow wouldn't retaliate. No, he definitely would. So, Ichigo had no choice. A harmless looking cloudy wall of potentially grotesque death was lingering just six feet around them. There was nowhere to go anymore but... closer.

So, as Grimmjow uncurled, with watery eyes and sharp teeth, and a face that said he was ready to snap Ichigo into thin kindling, Ichigo played his only card. He grabbed Grimmjow's chin, human-looking side and Hollow-masked side squeezed tightly between long fingers. Then without hesitation, he dragged the stunned Espada down, and threw them back into a messy, unplanned kiss.

Grimmjow's shock was muffled against Ichigo's mouth. But it was the only sound he made, because then he was just working against him with pressure that was angry and needy all at once. Ichigo opened his mouth for a breath, but got more than just air. The tip of a wet tongue traced his inner lip, and everything inside him turned to lava.

He didn't even think when he unlatched a shaking hand from Grimmjow's bicep and plunged it straight down the front of his hakama. He just needed more. More from Grimmjow. More sounds. More need. More ragged breaths.

Grimmjow obliged, eyes flying open in complete surprise before squeezing shut in blind trust, that before now, had never been something he'd _had_ to give.

Ichigo found him, full and ready. He'd never had his hand on a dick other than his own before, but it was pretty straight forward. Grab, squeeze and pump. He started slow, Grimmjow filling out even more inside his hand. Which, whether it was or not, sent Ichigo to the moon from the compliment.

Ichigo twisted his hip, his own dick finding the low edge of Grimmjow's hips with crude relief, grinding himself into it as he rushed his hand up and down Grimmjow's hot shaft. All done with gentle touches. Just _getting him there_ now.

The feverish groan, and the reactive jerk of Grimmjow's hips... That was definitely a compliment.

_Hey, he thought idly, if this was a getting-along test, they were nailing it on both fronts. Good for them._

Ichigo's wrist was starting to ache, from the angle and from being trapped tightly between them as he pulled Grimmjow towards ecstasy. Their teeth clashed together as Ichigo bared his and made a _sound_ , dangerously close to a frustrated whine, the friction of his trapped length against Grimmjow's body from behind his hakama nearly enough to undo him, but not quite.

Grimmjow shuddered, Ichigo's hand still dry, and pulled away from the kiss with heavy breaths, dragging bee-stung lips down along Ichigo's cheek and settling them against his neck, the sudden, sharp graze of teeth against his pulse as threatening and exhilarating as any fight to the death.

“The fuck...” Grimmjow's voice was a low, confused growl, husky and muffled against Ichigo's hair and neck as the Espada nosed around his ear, searching around for more. Of him. “How you taste so good?”

Taste? And for a moment, Ichigo remembered that Grimmjow was a Hollow. And he didn't give it any more thought beyond that because Grimmjow... Grimmjow smelled like musk and sex and the blazing heat of fresh battle right now.

Ichigo couldn't stand Grimmjow sitting there being _hot_ for another minute straight.

“How d'you fucking smell like _home_?” he said without care or thought.

The unearthly noise that crawled up from Grimmjow's throat was a shocked whine and a simultaneous angry growl that he'd never heard come out of any un-living thing before. Ichigo bit right down on Grimmjow's ear when strong hands suddenly yanked his hakama down in retaliation and wrapped around his erection.

Thank God.

In a brief and urgent fumble of hands, Grimmjow also managed to shift his own hakama down low enough for Ichigo to look down into the small space between them and clearly _see_ what he'd been holding onto so tightly. Tripod was his first thought. Ample was his second. It matched Grimmjow's body, fully formed and thick, arrow straight, neither left nor right leaning, the broad head an angry red, and the whole shaft long enough to...

How would that feel was his third.

He felt it pulse inside his fingers and squeezed back hard. Grimmjow made another strangled noise, a dying sound, and jerked his hips up into his hand, covering Ichigo's fist with jets of wet heat, and taking Ichigo with him on a groan into blinding white and breathless, muscle seizing euphoria.

“Fuuuck...” Grimmjow quivered then sagged, body quaking as he finished letting loose over Ichigo's hand, legs doing a shitty job of holding him up.

“Hnngh,” Ichigo replied, eyes screwed up and tearing.

He took Ichigo with him alright, over the edge and down to the ground, Ichigo still cumming in sharp spasms against him as they landed, their knees bent and interlocked like the teeth of a zipper. Resting their heads on each other's shoulders as they fought to catch their breath. As close as they could get.

After a minute, they both reached down and shakily lifted one side each of the hem of Grimmjow's hakama, then Ichigo's, both spent erections hidden away. Bodies drained like they'd been fighting. Dying with at least some dignity.

Ichigo closed his eyes and rested his weight on Grimmjow, as the world disappeared over Grimmjow's shoulder. Grimmjow squeezed tighter and let out one last amazingly hot breath against Ichigo's neck. Then nuzzled. He swore he heard a contented hum or a growl, but...

There was sound. A roar. Distant but growing louder. Like a million tiny static pops.

This was it for them.

They didn't open their eyes to see the end. Just squeezed each other tight enough to crack bones.

But what a way to go.

**X X X**

Sand.

Rocks.

Blue sky and bright light.

Grimmjow was the first one to open his eyes.

“Are we.. in Hueco Mundo?” he muttered, still wrapped around Ichigo, not quite ready to let go.

Ichigo's head came up off his shoulder, carefully, like a wrong move would change reality again.

“Hueco Mundo?” Ichigo repeated, sounding not at all happy about the idea.

Grimmjow shuddered as he felt out with his pesquisas, though he shouldn't have to to know what home felt like. In a magnified rush, the energy of the place sunk in. “No. This isn't it,” he growled, loosening his hold only slightly, and straightening to crane his neck in all directions. “Where the hell are we?”

“You're alive! Goodness, but that was close!”

“Oh, my God,” Ichigo grumbled, squeezing his eyes shut in the face of a terrible new reality.

“Where. Are we?” Grimmjow repeated, a bit of his normal hostility returning.

“Urahara's basement,” Ichigo offered somewhat uselessly, aware of sounds behind them and not needing turn and look at his mentor.

And was that a camera shutter?

“Helpful. Thanks.” Grimmjow finally unhooked his arms, if only to pull back and properly glare into Ichigo's stupid unhelpful face.

Then they both looked up.

“I see my note worked!” Uraraha, arriving at their sides, sounded delighted, even though Benihime was pointed in Grimmjow's general direction and Tessai's hands were up and ready to throw down with kido spells. “And you boys took my advice!”

They did.

Oh right. Shit.

On cue, Ichigo and Grimmjow shot apart, scooting several feet away, both flushing under two new sets of potentially perceptive eyes.

“You couldn't... _see_ us in there, could you?” Ichigo muttered, scowling ferociously and hardly able to even look Urahara in the eye.

“Oh!? Noooo,” Urahara said honestly. “I was able to transfer your fused-sword-dimension to my basement, and then observe its energy fluctuations from outside. Which were fascinating. I was also able to stabilize it for a short time. It's energy suggested it was reacting to whatever is was you were doing in there. I deduced that when you were fighting, if Ichigo were to try to leave, for example, then Grimmjow's sword would vibrate _badly_ , dispersing Ichigo's reishi molecules _across_ the _cosmos_.” He made a broad sweeping gesture with his hands, producing a fan and using it like a bad megaphone. “And vice versa!”

Ichigo and Grimmjow's eyes both shot to Grimmjow's reformed hand.

“Luckily, I even managed to create a small crack and slip you my notes. Brilliant! Wouldn't you say?”

Urahara went from beaming proudly about his accomplishments to frozen out and withering as two stone cold faces glared up at him.

“Why,” he asked innocently, flipping the fan up and shielding the bottom half of his face. “Was there something truly scientific and interesting happening inside that I should know about?”

“Not really,” Grimmjow said flatly, his tone ending the conversation as far as he was concerned.

“No.” Ichigo added firmly. “But.. I'll fill you in on what I _can_...” he side-eyed Grimmjow, “later, if you want.”

“Hn. Fill him in on whatever you want.” Grimmjow stood, dusting off a patch of sand that clung to a sticky spot on his white hakama. “I don't care. I'm gonna go.” He turned and raised his hand to open a garganta. “Stinks of Shinigami around here.”

“I'm afraid that will be quite impossible,” Urahara said, Benihime following his movements, the mood turning serious and grabbing both young warrior's complete attention.

Grimmjow made a cornered sound in his throat.

“We are at war, after all. And you, Grimmjow Jaegerjaquez, are an Espada, the sixth strongest in Aizen's army... in Shinigami territory.”

Grimmjow tensed, reaching on pure instinct for his sword again. Which, again, wasn't there. Right. Fuck.

“You have two choices. We can execute you now. Or you can consider yourself a prisoner of war.”

Grimmjow's eyes narrowed.

“You sonofabitch. You took our swords.”

Ichigo sighed. Of course _that's_ what Grimmjow was worried about.

“How about a third option?” Ichigo cut in, to everyone's surprise and immediate interest, and before Grimmjow could go all ballistic, which from his darkening expression was about three seconds away.

“Switch sides,” he offered seriously. Getting a prickly face-full of the response he expected.

“Hah! You're off your nut,” Grimmjow jeered, the asshole in him returning to its usual place at the forefront of his personality.

“Why not?” Ichigo yelled back, also being the hothead that he was. “If it's about honor...”

“Fuck honor! I have a place. A rank.” He hesitated slightly, as if maybe that wasn't enough. “I'm going to be King some day...”

“You could have a place here too,” Ichigo snapped without meaning to. Wow. Where had that hurt-rush come from?

Grimmjow seemed to see it immediately, something in his frigid blue eyes softening into something still... cold and calculating... but like he was weighing it all out. All of it. The old and the new. And in a bold instant, throwing it all away.

He turned and looked away from all of them, out across the fake desert. Thinking about the real one.

“Fine,” he said, voice a low rumble, not much emotion in it at all.

“Fine?” Ichigo muttered, face sour until he slowly realized that Grimmjow had just given up a throne for him. Real or imagined.

“Yeah,” he lifted a shoulder, turning serious azure eyes to the others. “Whatever. I'll stay here. _For now._ But don't expect me to fight any of your battles for you.” He directed that at Urahara. “I fight on my own terms.”

The shade in Urahara's eyes lifted as he tipped his hat back on his head with a finger and thumb.

“My. My. Ichigo. What _did_ you get up to in there?” he said quietly, on a breath that wasn't completely to himself. “It's not a bad idea,” he agreed finally. “Grimmjow could be a great asset in Ichigo's future training.”

Ichigo blinked. Training? By Grimmjow?

The Espada in question slowly grinned, looking at Ichigo like a meal. Or a punching bag.

“I like the sound of that.”

“Great!” Urahara said brightly, Benihime lowered and looking like a cane again.

“I don't!” Ichigo bleated. Not that anyone was listening to him.

“First things first,” Grimmjow said evenly, folding his arms. “I get my sword back. Then we have to work on your... _technique_.”

“Technique?” Ichigo sputtered, eye twitching.

“It's gonna be a challenge but I think we'll get there if I'm in charge.” Grimmjow nodded to himself in approval, sounding to Ichigo's reddening ears like he was absolutely not talking about fighting.

Ichigo fizzled, noises rattling around in his throat as he reddened everywhere else.

“In charge? The hell you're gonna be in charge of me!” Fighting. Sex. Or otherwise.

“Heh.” Grimmjow dropped his arms and sonido'd forward, bustling right up into him, bumping naked chests – _oh right_ – together. “You like it that way,” he purred into Ichigo's blushing face, slipping down to whisper into the sun-hot heat of his ear. “I can tell.”

Ichigo compressed, the moisture in the air around him vaporizing.

“Bullshit! You're the one who....” Ichigo started, standing on his toenails to meet Grimmjow's annoying face nose to nose as they began to squabble in earnest.

Urahara's fan was back. Eyes wide and growing wider with growing comprehension.

Well. Well. Ichigo _did_ have some things to tell him. This was going to be a strange alliance, indeed.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed any little thing at all... favorite moments give me life. ❤  
> And I'm open to little improvements, dialogue tweaks and the like. ¯\\_(ツ)_/¯


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